Ten years ago, Christina Ford had a better idea. Today, it’s getting even better. It was back in 1990 that Ford first noticed a trend of increasing numbers of U.S. directors coming to Canada to shoot TV commercials. That’s when she decided to found a new Toronto-based company, Imported Artists, that focused on hiring international directors for the Canadian marketplace a foresighted move that proved prescient of the forces of globalization that have since transformed the commercial and film production industry.

Although Ford’s ‘anti-Canadian’ idea initially met resistance, she has since been impressively vindicated: not only has she pioneered an international trend in Canada, she has spawned a host of imitators, garnered more local and global awards than any competitor, and fundamentally re-shaped commercial production in this country.

This fall, with its affiliation with long format film company, Clarence Square Pictures, and the launch of a new internet TV venture, her company is poised to transform itself into the film production house of the future. And in a male-dominated industry, all this was accomplished by a woman.

How did she do it?

The seeds of Imported Artists trace back to the early 1980s when Ford, still only in her 20s, owned and operated two fashion and cosmetics stores in downtown Toronto. Although successful, her business wasn’t making her happy. Then she met the husband of one of her colleagues, Harvey Sherman, an executive producer at Schulz Productions, now owner of Max Pictures. It proved her entrée into an exciting new world — commercial production.

‘For my first six months at Schulz, I was still managing my stores, so I had two jobs,’ recalls Ford. ‘My employees were handling orders and merchandising and I was running around finding cake plates for Duncan Heinz shoots. I soon discovered film production was far more fascinating.’

For her first day at work at Schulz in 1983, Ford arrived wearing a silk blouse, linen skirt and high heel shoes.

‘No one asked me to load a truck – I had the shortest career ever as a production assistant,’ she recalls. ‘So I quickly became in-house wardrobe stylist, based on my fashion background. Over time, I was given the opportunity to do everything that needed to be done. It was a great place to learn, primarily producing.’

Two years later, Ford left Schulz to work as a sales rep at McWaters VanLint. Within five months, she rose to general manager and executive producer, looking after the Canadian agencies over the next four years. In 1990, Ford was approached by Don McLean of the Partners’ Film Company to work as an executive producer.

‘I was not interested, as I thought it was a lateral, if not a downward, move because I had a lot of control at McWaters,’ says Ford. ‘But I had lunch with Don and I realized that while I didn’t want to be an executive producer at Partners’, I did want to run my own company.’

In her first year, Ford worked alone in a small office space at Partners’, next door to their main building on Church Street, working as a satellite operation. A year later, she moved her growing enterprise to 49 Spadina Avenue, a former boozecan in the old garment district, gradually expanding the space over the years, now housing its current in-house staff of nine. Three years in, she bought out of Partners’, maintaining a good relationship with Don McLean.

Imported Artists instantly caused a stir in the Canadian production community. Three months after its founding, the Canadian Producers Association was formed and they launched a newsletter campaign targeting Ford’s ‘un-Canadian’ tactics.

‘In fact, I saw myself as pro-Canadian because the reality was that Canada was becoming more global,’ remembers Ford. ‘If you have a company in the city where you are truly looking after your own, you may have an offshore director flying in but you’ve got everyone else in support. Today, even the people who were stirring up opposition now have U.S. representation. The world has become a lot smaller since those pre-internet days in the early ’90s. We can now go to where the best directors are, whether they live in Bangladesh or Barrie, Ontario.’

Ford knew that while Canada has a terrific pool of talented directors, it’s a small marketplace globally: ‘When you go worldwide, you have the option of pulling from artists who have mastered different styles and techniques. Advertisers and agencies are looking for new ways for their ads to stand out from everyone else, and one way is to use a director who people haven’t seen over and over again, who has a fresh, unique vision.’

Gradually, by word of mouth, Imported Artists earned its reputation as the place to work for non-resident directors looking for A level projects.

‘Canada has a tremendous reputation for producing terrific work, both creatively and on production side,’ says Ford.

‘The crews and the support are phenomenal. When you have an A level director coming up here to shoot in Toronto or Vancouver, they are always very impressed.’

In 1991, Ford signed a New York-based director, Richard D’Alessio, who immediately began working non-stop. His career took off in Canada with his award-winning direction of the original Molson I AM Canadian campaign in 1994. Then Imported Artists started attracting new directors based on their success with D’Alessio. Today, the company has assembled a stable of just under 30 directors from the USA and Europe, with D’Alessio and Dale Heslip working in-house.

When D’Alessio first arrived in Toronto, he immediately fell in love with the city and then with Ford. In 1993, they got married. ‘Talk about securing your director!’ she confesses. Together, the couple have steadily built the company and yet retained a ‘family vibe’ that humanizes what can be a demanding and stressful business.

D’Alessio fondly remembers his first Canadian job with Peter Holmes, then creative director of Franklin Dallas: ‘He’s a clever guy with good ideas. We did some Clear Blue Easy and Sears Air Miles spots – fun, award-winning work that gave me an entrée into the market.’

Over the past decade, Imported Artists has developed a strong, secure relationship with the ad agency community.

‘It’s extremely important that the relationship is based on trust,’ says Ford. ‘If I promise them something, we’ll deliver. If we can’t deliver, we make sure we find a way of all of us coming out happy. It’s important to me to spend a lot of time with the agencies showing them what we are doing, showing new directors and new spots. Generally, I find most agencies are very interested in seeing what we’re doing because our directors work at such a high level.’

David Baxter, president and owner of Panic & Bob, who has worked with D’Alessio for over five years, heartily agrees: ‘Richard is one of the best directors in the city. He has a great mix of styles. He takes ideas and works with you, not against you. He consistently produces quality work, always taking it that extra mile.’ Those sentiments are echoed by Gary Rose, owner of U.S.-based Moxie Pictures: ‘Richard is an original, inventive director with a terrific visual sense. He has a gift for taking a story idea and quickly finding its essence. And he has a great sense of humour too.’

Cynthia Heyd, vice-president and director of broadcast production at BBDO, has worked with Imported Artists since its founding in 1990.

‘Imported Artists looks after you,’ she says. ‘They’re very collaborative and they attract first rate people. They know who works well with whom, and that’s key. Each production feels seamless. It’s always a creative, stimulating and inspiring environment, whether you’re working with Canadian or offshore people.’

And it’s an award-winning environment too. Last April, Women In Film and Television presented Ford with the Crystal Award 2000 For Outstanding Excellence in Production by a woman in a screen-based industry.

‘It was the first time they had acknowledged the commercial production industry as a vital part of women in film and television,’ she notes. ‘To me, that was pretty important.’

Ford had earlier been chosen by Marketing Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in Canadian communications, an honour bestowed on only 12 women.

In September 1998, when Marketing Magazine chose the top 15 ‘Landmark Canadian Advertisements’ of the 1990s, no less than four were produced by Imported Artists, and three directed by D’Alessio, a disproportionately high number by any standard. The spots included:

— The 1992 Sunlight Kitchen spot out of MacLaren: Lintas, directed by Leslie Libman and Larry Williams, that took the focus away from their product by admitting to the viewer that you have more important things to do than worrying about clean dishes.

– The 1994 I AM Canadian MacLaren McCann campaign that helped Molson re-energize its Canadian brand and turn around its market share in English Canada.

– 1996’s Chrysler Minivan Snowball spot out of BBDO Canada, which won the Grand Prix at the 1997 CASSIES and spawned imitators south of the border.

– The Kellogg’s Special K Resolution spot for Leo Burnett in 1997. The ad showed men uttering the same phrases of self-doubt about self-image that women have repeated for years. The award-winning campaign-Gold awards from the Marketing and Bessies shows, was picked up to run around the world.

In 1997, Ford and D’Alessio joined with partner Jeff Berman, a former producer of Kids In The Hall, to form Clarence Square Pictures, a long format film company. The idea was to give commercial directors a chance to expand into TV and film direction. The company is currently developing four feature film projects, including an adaptation of the Canadian novel ‘Fugitive Pieces,’ and a couple of TV projects with The Comedy Network and HBO.

‘Imported Artists is like a film school for features, if you want it,’ enthuses in-house director Dale Heslip. ‘Commercial directors bring excellent discipline when they move to larger format. You have to deal with the essence of the character and communicate it in within 30 seconds. We gain an enormous amount of education from digesting a script and figuring how to do it. Every month, you’re dealing with different actors, art direction, special effects, and storytelling. Therefore you’re honing your craft in a more intensive way than if you were only working a couple of longer films over a longer period.’

As in-house directors, both D’Alessio and Heslip appreciate the shop buzz and synergy that Imported Artists generates, a luxury most directors don’t enjoy.

‘Directors tend to live in an isolated world,’ says Heslip. ‘It’s not like working in an agency where art directors and writers can bounce ideas off each other. That’s one of the cool things about Imported Artists. There’s a family energy, even from out-of-town guys who come in. There’s no insecure ego thing where you feel you can’t share ideas. I mean, we all borrow from a collective consciousness anyway, especially now that technology can get anything you want instantly. It’s having a global effect on how we think and create.’

Whether D’Alessio is putting on one of his famous, ‘Dick’s Karaoke Nights,’ or Ford is playing, ‘Name That Tune’ to chill out her employees after a stressful project, the corporate culture at Imported Artists is best characterized as, ‘The Ally McBeal of production companies.’

‘It’s an eclectic, close-knit mix of different personalities, but somehow it all works,’ observes Doug Reneau, the company’s seasoned head of production. ‘When you share a common goal of creating good work, it means you give a lot more.’ Being the only man in the office day in and day out, Reneau is regarded as the ‘father’ of the Imported Artists family, looking out for the well-being of his crew.

Every morning at 11:30, a lunch menu goes up on the wall. That’s the signal that everyone in the building that day should drop everything and sit down at the boardroom table together for a bite to eat.

‘The cool thing about those lunches is that they promote synergy and ideas, whether it’s personal or professional stuff,’ says Heslip. ‘That comes from Christina, who is a very open, honest person. She wears her emotions on her sleeve, never keeping you guessing or

letting things fester and explode. She deals with things as they happen in this business. You have to, because everything is so fast-paced. In order to preserve good creative, you’ve got to think quickly.’

Talk to any of the colleagues of Ford and D’Alessio, inside and outside the company, and a consistent portrait comes through: they both share an uncanny creative ability to ‘cut to the chase’ and quickly find the basic elements and people that make a highly collaborative enterprise work.

‘Christina knows who’s out there in the industry and who’s good,’ observes executive producer Suzanne Allan. ‘She does her research, planning and thinking before she moves. She’s always keeping up with changes in the company and the industry, thinking about the future.’

‘We all work well as a team,’ adds Marni Luftspring of sales and marketing. ‘We all know each other’s roles but we help each other if necessary. We learn about each other personally and professionally.’

Marylu Jeffery, an executive producer for the last six years, appreciates the absence of ego and hierarchy: ‘It’s like a group of friends or family. When I worked as a freelancer, I got to know various production houses, but I always noticed Imported Artists had a unique vibe about it. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s just a very friendly place to come into. I know agencies feel the same way.’

And they do. Agency people generally see Imported Artists’ quality of work as not only extraordinarily high, but consistently so. That’s partly because Ford will only take the boards she thinks are the right ones to take. ‘She will never prod directors into doing jobs they don’t want to do,’ says Jeffrey.’

D’Alessio, in conjunction with Andy Knight, Linzi Knight and Dave Sylvester of Red Rover are launching Unplugged, an internet TV station dedicated to short format entertainment, giving commercial directors a chance to cross-pollinate between TV, features, and the web. ‘We’ll play short films from around the world and also produce original material, including an Unplugged TV comedy sketch show,’ he says. Unplugged will also integrate advertising, licensed characters and product placement into the web content.

Ford has clearly come a long way from the days 10 years ago when she was taking heat for importing American directors.

‘Ironically, without the American directors coming up to Canada, the Canadian industry would be quite different,’ says D’Alessio. ‘The whole industry is based on incoming dollars – it’s basically the American film industry in Canada. Importing directors had been going on in feature films forever and nobody protested. It took commercial ad people a while to get used to it, but once people saw the talent they could work with, it made sense.’

D’Alessio says that when the Canadian ad community was offered the opportunity to work with directors from around the world, they began realizing that a lot of the Canadian work was at a higher creative level than they had originally thought. Commercials and features that have come to Canada have been instrumental in contributing to the quality of crew people. The assistant cameramen, gaffers, production companies and ad agencies get to work with the hottest directors and DOPs in the world.

‘That means that companies are buying better high-tech equipment, spending more money, and building post-production facilities,’ he observes. ‘It opened the floodgates. Had Canada not welcomed the idea of Hollywood North, the Canadian industry would be tiny.’

D’Alessio says that Ford recognized from the beginning that the industry is predicated on volume and making money: ‘We’ve simply focused on doing great creative work. As a result, you invariably win awards and make money. There’s nothing precious about this place. It’s a real filmmaker’s shop. You don’t see the money in the walls, furniture or design. We’re pushing one thing only – great creative.’

What’s next for Ford and Imported Artists?

‘I’m not a boundless growth kind of person,’ she says. ‘I’m like the tortoise who crosses the finish line ahead of the hare. I’m very focused on where I’m going to move, and I always know in which direction I’m going before I put a foot down.’

Ford and D’Alessio see Imported Artists evolving into ‘the production company of the future,’ a full multi-media enterprise that retains its boutique size. ‘We’re on the brink of incredibly fascinating times,’ says Ford. ‘Production houses have to be savvy and leading edge. We need to spend more time on the internet and broadband. You’ll see fewer big network campaigns and more sporadic work. Statistics show teenagers are spending far more time on the net than watching TV. That’s a big shift in a huge market. Things are changing fast.’

Imported Artists has recently formed an affiliation with New York-based Shooting Gallery that, for example, enables them to send video streams to directors in New York or L.A. so they can conduct casting sessions on their computers.

‘The technology is growing so fast and becoming increasingly sophisticated,’ says Ford. ‘I’m hoping that the cost of creating DVDs for reels comes down considerably and each agency has one. We’re the only industry that has a dinosaur 3/4 inch machine format to watch reels. We need a more modern format for screening reels and posting them on the web. The visual quality of the web is still not as good as we’d like, but it’s coming.’

Ten years from now, no one can say for sure what Canadian film production will look like. But there’s a good chance it will look a lot like a place called Imported Artists.

Imported Artists

Christina Ford, President/Executive Producer

Marylu Jeffery, Executive Producer

Suzanne Allan, Executive Producer

Doug Reneau, Head of Production

Marni Luftspring, Sales Rep

Ben Valiquette, Office Manager

Amanda Traub, Receptionist

Chelsea Hulme, Assistant to Richard D’Alessio

Richard D’Alessio, Director

Dale Heslip, Director

Clarence Square

Jeff Berman, Executive Producer

Shawn Goldberg, Assistant Producer